


The Knowing

by aposse



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:18:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1389115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aposse/pseuds/aposse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But Mayor Mills is different to his mom. Or Regina, as she keeps insisting him to call her. Yet when he does, Henry notices something flicker through Regina’s eyes, her lips dipping downward before rising back up into place. And the little things, like agreeing to what she has to say or smiling at her – she smiles at him and holds onto her hands tighter, like she’s trying to hold back from him or something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Knowing

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after the most recent episode, "The Tower." Thank you to my beta and cheerleader, Sophie (aurorstorm)! As always, I own nothing but do hope you enjoy!

It’s weird, he thinks. For someone who has the superpower to know when people are lying, Mom sure is bad at telling her own. Because Henry knows his mom.

 

He knows how happy she is in the morning by how much cinnamon she sprinkles on her cocoa. Two shakes is what Henry’s deemed the standard; a day that has the chance to start off right and eventually does. One round of sprinkling means she’s tired, three means she’s nervous about something and four – four is overboard, and Henry’s only seen that once: the morning they left for Maine.

 

“ _Mom_ ,” he remembers reaching over to stop her from drowning her whipped cream in cinnamon, and when his grip closed around her wrist – middle finger meeting his thumb – it was like a lock clicking into place and she stopped.

 

He also knows what Mom’s smiles mean.

 

The tiny ones she does, the ones where it’s like someone’s pulling a string at the corner of her lips and they twitch? She does that when she’s proud of him and she thinks he can’t see. Mom had to pick him up from the principal’s office one time because he got into a fight with a (dumb) kid who used his favourite comic to steady his desk. Henry remembers that smile after trying to make Principal McCowan understand the crime it was to use Marvel comics for that purpose, let alone leave such an atrocious dent on Iron Man’s face. Mom smiled at his use of the word ‘atrocious’, familiar that it was the word he learned from one of her crosswords.

 

Mom smiles big, too. The more teeth she shows, the better, but only if her lips curve up. When Mom’s smile grows wide but not up, Henry knows she’s uncomfortable (he remembers this only because of that time his gym teacher kissed Mom’s hand). He’s always thought that the bigger Mom’s smile, the better. But ever since they came to Storybrooke it’s been different. Mom has these smiles that are tight and straight, sometimes she has ones curved down and sometimes she doesn’t even smile. More often than not, her lips rest in a line, and Henry’s reminded of the hours they spent driving on a single-lined road here, to Storybrooke, Maine.

 

Then there’s her eyes, which Henry wishes he had but instead got stuck with plain ones (Mom always makes him feel better about it though, telling him he’s lucky they’re the same color as chocolate, and everybody _loves_ chocolate). Mom’s eyes tell him a lot, and lately he knows she’s been scared. They’re wide but closed whenever people come up to them in town. He can feel Mom’s hand hold onto his shoulder just a little tighter, too.

 

But Mayor Mills is different to his mom. Because when Mom came back from talking to her in the diner, she sprinkled her cocoa with cinnamon twice. When Mom asked him if spending the afternoon with Mayor Mills was okay and he went straight ahead to ask if she liked walking in parks, that invisible string pulled at her lips, and she smiled at him like she used to. Then, when Mom picked him up later, her eyes weren’t as wide and alarmed like he knew them to be ever since entering this town. They were soft and open with Mayor Mills.

 

Or Regina, as she keeps insisting him to call her. Yet when he does, Henry notices something flicker through Regina’s eyes, her lips dipping downward before rising back up into place. And the little things, like agreeing to what she has to say or smiling at her – she smiles at him and holds onto her hands tighter, like she’s trying to hold back from him or something.

 

When Henry brings this up to Mom she stabs a potato on her plate and says, “Regina is just really nice, Henry, and you’re just a really likable kid,” it’s definitely weird.

 

Because Mom doesn’t lie to him.

 

* * *

 

Mom spends the next few days “working” again, and again, she promises that she’ll have more time for them to do stuff over the weekend. He surprises her when he asks if he could see Mayor Mil– Regina again. Mom’s smile looks a little queasy at that, but it’s gone when they’re standing in front of Regina’s _huge_ house and Mom’s smile is replaced with a real one.

 

“Oh.” Regina says, looking down at him, then at Mom who just digs her hands into her pockets.

 

“Hi.” Mom says back, and even if her smile looks a little wobbly, it’s big and Henry feels her tension melt with the greeting. “Henry wanted to see you again, and I’ll only be gone for a couple of hours but if you–“

 

“Henry’s always welcome.” Regina finally stops looking at him with this weird awe (that Henry thinks is akin to his own face when he’s in the comic section of the bookstore), “And you’re not imposing on me. Take however long you need.” Regina’s playing with her hands and giving him that smile again, and when he looks up at Mom he sees that she’s smiling at him, too.

 

He doesn’t really know what’s happening so he just shrugs, smiles back and gives Mom that side hug that he usually does before boarding the bus to school.

 

* * *

 

He’s walking through Regina’s house (that oddly feels like home) and setting down his backpack when he sees it. “You have your own apple tree?” he asks, fascinated by how red the apples are against the green leaves. They have trees back in New York, but they’re all along the sidewalks and Henry doubts they were ever planted with the care he feels like Regina has with this one in her backyard.

 

“I even use the apples when I bake,” he hears from behind him. Her steps stop echoing as she stands next to him. “Would you like to bake something, Henry?”

 

He turns to Regina with excitement and nods, but what he says next isn’t something he can really control. “Do you know how to make turnovers?” He’s only ever had one from the bakery across from their place it wasn’t even _that_ good, so he doesn’t know why he asks it.

 

Regina’s staring at him like he’s just insulted her, and for a moment he believes he actually has. Maybe Regina hates turnovers like he hates how Marvel switched the guys who played the Hulk without explaining why. But then Regina shrugs it off and says, “Of course, I do,” and instructs him to wash his hands.

 

It’s half an hour later when he’s kneading his little ball of dough next to Regina’s that he asks another question. “Did you know my mom from before?”

 

He’s eyeing Regina’s dough to make sure he’s doing it right when he sees her rhythm falter. In the time it takes Henry to look up at Regina then back down, she’s back to kneading like she never stopped. “Why do you ask that?”

 

Henry shrugs. “Mom never leaves me alone with strangers, and since she’s let me hang out with you twice, I guess you aren’t one.”

 

“I guess I’m not.”

 

* * *

 

The weekend comes and Mom sticks to her promise, sort of. Two hours in she ends up bailing on him for work. Henry doesn’t even need to ask where she’s driving him because when they pull up in front of the big, white house his body just _knows_. He unbuckles his seatbelt, waves off Mom and something about this whole routine feels oddly familiar, like how Regina’s house feels like home.

 

Henry walks up the pathway with his backpack slung on one shoulder and before he can even climb a step the door is swinging open and there’s Regina, confusedly smiling at him. “Henry,” she says. It’s her greeting, Henry’s decided, and he smiles in return.

 

“Mom said she’d really only be an hour this time.” He explains what Mom told him in the car. Regina just nods like she already knows or doesn’t really care.

 

“Like I said, you’re always welcome here.”

 

Henry believes her.

 

* * *

 

Regina ends up giving him a tour of the gigantic house. Henry refrains from asking why it’s only her because for some reason, he gets the feeling that it wasn’t always just her who lived here. This becomes clear when she’s pointing out her bedroom, the guest rooms and then, when her eyes land on a closed door, she kind of fumbles and goes quiet. She doesn’t say anything about that room, just stares at it, then back at him.

 

“What’s in there?” He asks, this time more mindful of what Regina’s face is telling him (this is one of Mom’s techniques she uses along with her superpower).

 

Regina looks unsure, and when he thinks she’ll do what most adults do when they don’t want to talk about something and change the subject, she braves through and says, “it was my son’s room,” and walks past him to open the door.

 

The first thing Henry thinks is that he would have gotten along with Regina’s son. The blue walls are his kind of shade and her son seems to have good taste in comics, too. But the bedsheets look too crisp and too clean that it feels unlived in, and before Henry can ask the question Regina’s already answering him.

 

“He’s not here right now. Gone, just for a little while.”

 

Something inside Henry tells him not to press further so he just nods and walks over to the bookshelf. There’s no dust on the shelves, Henry notices, sliding his finger over the bindings of the books. He drags his finger over a thick, worn out one and feels a shock pulsate through him that makes him pull back immediately.

 

Regina’s at his side in an instant asking what’s happened. “I don’t know,” he says truthfully, “I just... it felt like static, but I felt it everywhere.” Regina’s holding his hand in hers, her eyes studying it like a treasure map.

 

Henry knows when someone realizes something, and what he sees now in Regina – the way her eyes widen and her jaw goes slack – is definitely a realization dawning. Regina takes him by the shoulders and seats him at the edge of the bed. “I need you to wait here, okay? I’ll be right back.” Before he can even protest that he’s fine, Regina’s out and her heels are clacking down the stairs.

 

And _he tries_.

 

Henry tries to do exactly what Regina asks of him, to _wait here_ , but something is pulling his body towards the shelf and it sounds crazy, but it’s almost like magic. Because before he knows it, his hand is reaching for that book again. The one with the thick, old binding, and when his finger touches the leather it stings, but he powers through it and manages to grab hold of the book, pulling it out completely.

 

‘ _Once Upon a Time_ ’

 

It doesn’t sting anymore, but holding it with both hands, he knows there’s something flowing through him; it starts at his fingers then up his arms, down his belly and grounding him through the toes. Then it shoots back up, flowing over his heart and finally his head where a lot of things just start flashing through his mind. He sees many things, but they pass too quickly for him to understand what they mean.

 

Then there’s a sound of something dropping behind him and whatever’s rushing through his brain stops. “Henry?” Her whisper is like a clap of thunder in his ears. Henry turns around to find a phone dismantled on the floor, scattered around a pair of heel clad feet. And then, when his brown eyes finally rise to meet similar ones it’s overwhelming, what he feels but can’t make sense of. There’s pictures and sounds and words popping into every possible space of his mind all trying to tell him the same thing, so he says the one word that keeps wanting to tumble out of his mouth.

 

“ _Mom?_ ”

  
  



End file.
